Amazing Stories has been conceived as a social magazine, a place where genre fans can not only read great fiction(*) and interesting articles, but a place where they can share their interests – and discover new ones.

CURRENT RATE CARD

SPECIAL OFFER

Amazing Stories is beginning its advertising program by targeting small presses and indie (self-published) authors (as well as smaller companies offering products and services related to genre), with a special discount offer:

$45.00

per month for a Top Box Ad

$75.00

per month for a Leaderboard Ad

Middle Banner Ad $25.00

Both ads will deliver over 1,000 impressions per day and over 30,000 impressions per month. The Middle Banner ad slightly less.

Ad space is limited to insure performance for each advertiser. Reservations for space are on a first-come, first-served basis.

Consult the remainder of this document for details about the advertising program and the website.

CONTENT

Unique Content

Amazing Stories contributors are drawn from both the professional and fannish ranks and include numerous well-known authors, artists, editors, bloggers, collectors and fans. As of January 2014, there are over 130 contributors to the website. Individual contributor profiles can be viewed by visiting the Staff page of the website. Contributors are actively and enthusiastically engaged in the project and are encouraged to write about what interests them.

News affecting the genre community is covered as well as topics related to the above. These topics are starting points as opposed to hard and fast subject categories. Contributors are encouraged to address what personally interests them in the proven belief that their enthusiasms will translate to viewer interest.

Content Schedule

Mon-Thurs

Fri.

Essays, critiques, reviews, advice and interviews.

Fan-related features (Fannish Friday) including The Club House (fanzine reviews, news from fandom) Fan Fotos (photo galleries from conventions and fan related events), Friday Fanzine (a reprint of a popular fanzine publication) as well as regular essays on science.

Sat & Sun

The IAAA gallery of space art alternating with an excerpt from an up-coming novel; the Amazing News weekly news roundup, Absolute Zero (a profile of an interesting genre-related website) and Time Machine (a summary of the weeks most popular posts).

Reviews regularly feature both classics and new releases in literature, film, television, comics and anime.

Amazing Stories is probably the only multilingual online genre-related magazine in the world and regularly features content from Spanish and French speaking contributors – in their native languages – on a weekly basis. It is expected that German and other languages will be added in relatively short order.

There has also been a conscious effort to encourage participation from as diverse a swath of the genre community as possible; contributors represent different sexes, genders, orientations, different cultures, faiths., political affiliations and generations.

The result has been interesting and diverse viewpoints on many of the current topics concerning the genre community today – as well as serving as a tremendous resource for information, discourse and debate on those topics.

*fiction published on Amazing Stories is currently represented by excerpts from new and up-coming novels.

DEMOGRAPHICS

Amazing Stories’ audience is as diverse as its contributors, which is what one would expect from a social website designed to appeal to genre fans.

The audience is roughly evenly divided between males and females; ages range from teens to octogenarians; the LGBTQ community is well-represented, as are various ‘isms.

As Amazing Stories moves into its second year the picture of its audience is expected to solidify: we fully expect that the audience will mirror that of the genre community as a whole – wildly diverse, from all economic strata, covering a wide age range (12 to 100), a largely well-educated, well-read group with significant representation from different races, cultures, countries, sexes, genders and orientations and with one thing in common – a love of genre subjects and properties.

In essence, Amazing’s audience IS the audience for anyone promoting and advertising a genre-related product or property.

TRAFFIC

Metrics

Amazing Stories began operations on January 1st, 2013 (following a month-long beta trial). Since January, Amazing Stories has almost quadrupled its initial views and unique visitors. The current trend is expected to continue. Conservative estimates (based on growth following its current pattern) indicate that the website is increasing in views and unique visitors by 20 to 25% per month.

The following graph of traffic – including unique visitors, page views and hits, for Amazing Stories first nine months of operation (and including the partial month of October).

Referrals

Amazing Stories is sourced through Google and a number of high-profile genre-related websites including:

Boing-Boing.net
Tor.com
SFSignal.com
Reddit.com
Facebook

Articles on Amazing Stories are frequently picked up by SF Signal, File 770, Boing-Boing, Reddit and other sites.

PROMOTION

Amazing Stories is promoted and advertised daily to numerous genre-related Facebook groups and to genre-related boards on Pinterest. At least one article per day is promoted through SF Signals daily link post.

The website is also actively promoted by contributors when attending national and regional conventions; recent promotions took place at LoneStarCon 3 and Dragoncon. The site will also be personally promoted at the up-coming World Fantasy Convention.

Amazing Stories will also be promoted at Boskone (through panels and presentations) and at other regional conventions throughout the year.

Additionally, the site is advertised through convention program book advertising.

Word of mouth within the genre community is a powerful tool. With nearly 120 contributors – many high-profile within the industry – Amazing Stories actively engages in this level of promotion on an almost daily basis.

An increasing number of genre-related websites (both those owned by contributors and sites independent of Amazing) carry promotional buttons linking to the site.

AD SIZE & LOCATION

Location

Two advertising opportunities are available under this program. The Leaderboard (top of every page) and Top Box Ad (upper right of every page except for Friday Fanzine posts).

Both ad locations are above the fold, meaning that every initial display of a page displays ads in these locations.

Size

Leaderboard: 720 x 90 pixels
Top Box Ad: 300 x 250 pixels

Rotation

Each ad location on Amazing Stories is rotational. This means that one of several different ads may be displayed in that location. An internal limit on the total number of individual ads that will be sold per location insures that all ads in a location receive a minimum of 1,000 impressions per day.

Impressions

Advertising costs on Amazing Stories are based on Cost Per Impression (CPM).

Typical industry standard rates are currently between three and four dollars per thousand impressions ($3/CPM, $4/CPM, .003 – .004 per single impression)

Amazing Stories ad rates deliver a cost-per-thousand-impressions that is inline with current industry standards.

Each ad purchased will receive a MINIMUM of 1,000 impressions per day for a minimum of 30,000 impressions per month.

While ad rates are based upon CPM, your ad will run for the contracted period of one month (30 days) – even if actual impressions exceed 30,000 impressions during that period.

Amazing Stories has DISCOUNTED it’s rate for this promotional program.

The current program rates have been discounted as an incentive to the advertiser. Discounted rates are set at approximately 1/3rd of industry standards. (See the fee table for details.)

Formats

We can accept ad artwork in the following graphic formats:

JPG, PNG, GIF, Animated Gif.

Artwork

Fees are for ads with completed ad artwork. Files should be submitted as an attachment and should be in the proper dimensions.

Art Preparation

Many of the ads currently appearing on the site were prepared in-house. If the layout and design of these ads is appropriate for your needs and you would like Amazing Stories to prepare your artwork for you, we will be happy to do so. Additional fees will apply. Artwork preparation will be quoted on an individual basis.

Links

Links submitted with ads should be straight links to a website, blog or retail purchasing opportunity (Audible, Amazon, B&N, etc.). An affiliate code may be included. Tracking code may NOT be included. (Tracking code can slow the performance of the website. We can make exceptions in this regard, but please contact us first.)

ADDITIONAL BENEFITS

There are a number of additional benefits that may be utilized to enhance your advertising experience on Amazing Stories:

Performance

From time to time during your ad run, you may request a statement regarding the number of impressions the ad has received to date.

Artwork & Link Updates

During the course of your advertising run you may change your artwork and link on an as-needed basis. Once your ad is running, you may submit new artwork and/or different links for no additional fee.

This benefit is designed to accommodate changing needs on the part of the advertiser. Changes will be made within reason. (A handful of requested changes is reasonable; new artwork every day is not.)

Reviews

If your ad is for a product or service that is suitable for an on-site review, Amazing Stories will be glad to consider it for review should you decide to submit it.

Our review process is slightly different from most other sites. Review materials are submitted to our Reviews Editor, who then makes the product available to all of our (nearly 120) contributors of varying interests and tastes on a first-come, first-served basis..

There is no guarantee that the review will appear during your advertising run or if one of our reviewers will be inclined or available to review it, though we will do our utmost to make that happen.

There is NO guarantee of a positive review provided for advertised product. None whatsoever. All of our Amazing Stories reviewers are independent contributors and are encouraged to write honest reviews that reflect their personal opinion.

You may request a review from a specific reviewer, and we will take that request into consideration, but there is no guarantee that your work will end up being reviewed by the requested individual.

There will be No Refunds in the event that your product does not receive a favorable review., although you may cancel your ad if you wish to.

Reviews of your advertised product will include a link to the product as specified by you (the same link as is used for the ad), unless you request otherwise.

Interviews & Profiles

You may request an interview or a profile of you and your work(s). Your body of work, your presence in and contributions to the field will be taken into consideration by staff prior to scheduling an interview or profile.

RATES

Payment

All ads are charged in full prior to ad run. An ad will not be scheduled to run until payment has been made.

Payment Methods

PayPal is our preferred method of payment. Make payments to:

steve.davidson@AmazingStoriesMag.com

If you need assistance making a PayPal payment (you can use a credit card through PayPal), please contact us at the above email address.

We will invoice you upon your request prior to receiving payment (otherwise you will receive an invoice/receipt upon payment).

We can make arrangements for other forms of payment; however, this may delay the appearance of your ad.

Refunds

Advertising fees are NON-REFUNDABLE. In the event that an ad does not receive the contracted number of impressions during the ad run period, the ad will continue to display – without additional charge(s) – until such time as the contracted number of impressions has been satisfied.

Cancellation of multiple month ad runs prior to the completion of the run will be refunded on a pro-rated basis, (the un-used portion of the ad run based on CPM) less 50% of the balance remaining.

DISCLAIMERS

1. The presence of an ad on Amazing Stories is NOT an endorsement of the products or services advertised. Advertisers may NOT represent that their product or service is endorsed or recommended in any way.
2. Amazing Stories, The Experimenter Publishing Company, its owners, employees and contributors disclaim any and all warranties, whether express or implied, that may be associated with advertisements appearing on the site.
3. Amazing Stories, The Experimenter Publishing Company, its owners, employees and contributors are not responsible or accountable for delays in service, service outages or external events that may affect the availability of the website and/or advertising that appears on the website. In the event that such occurs, ads will be retained (without additional charge) for a period of time that is the equivalent of the originally contracted ad run/the originally contracted number of impressions.
4. All rates are subject to change without notice. If you are currently advertising on the site, you will be notified of pending changes. Rate changes will not affect your current ad run.
5. Amazing Stories makes no representations whatsoever regarding the effectiveness or performance of ads on its site.

CONTACT

For questions, clarifications, to adjust ad runs, to submit artwork and links, to reserve an ad space or other advertising related issues on Amazing Stories, please use the following email address:

Advertising@AmazingStoriesMag.com

When communicating advertising information – including artwork and links, please use the following format:

In the subject line of your email, please write “Advertisement Attached”.

In the body of the email, please provide the following:

Your contact information (name, email address, a phone number if you wish)
Your specified location for the ad (Top Box Ad or Leaderboard)
The length of the run you wish to purchase (1 month, 3 months, etc)
The date you would like your ad run to commence
The link for the ad itself – http://www.mywebsite.com
A statement as to whether or not you have already paid and/or request an invoice prior to paying.

As an attachment, include your ad artwork.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR CONSIDERING AMAZING STORIES AS YOUR ADVERTISING PARTNER!

(If you would like to see the full version that includes additional informaton, please request one through the advertising email address shown on this page.)

Please note that we will not accept word link ads of any kind (regardless of the word or subject of the ad) at any time.

Please note that we will not “trade links”, nor participate in other marketing programs that seek to artificially increase traffic.

Guidelines & Policies

All content on Amazing Stories is “family friendly” (with the occasional caveat or NSFW warning); as such the content AND destination of all ads must conform to those sensibilities. Borderline items will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

We will not place any advertising without an advertising contract and insertion order.

Net terms may be extended to appropriate customers. Bills more than 15 days past due will cause any and all ads to be pulled until such time as the bill is brought up to date.

Amazing Stories is not monetarily responsible for loss of exposure and advertising time in the event of server downtime, your ad-server downtime, website downtime, viruses, malware attacks, denial of service attacks, nuclear armageddon the robot apocalypse, natural disasters or the wanton acts of superior intelligences. In the event of the Singularity, no one will need advertising or money.. Lost advertising time will be compensated for with an appropriate extension of the ad run.

Finally: Amazing Stories and the Experimenter Publishing Company reserve the right to deny advertising and promotional opportunities to anyone, for any reason, at any time, with or without cause and is under no obligation to explain or justify such refusal.. Furthermore, Amazing Stories and the Experimenter Publishing Company may withdraw advertisements and promotions from public display, at any time, for any reason, with or without cause and is only responsible for refunding the unused portion of any advertising balance that may apply within a reasonable period of time.

Promoting with Amazing Stories

Press Releases may be and should be sent to the *protected email* email address. If we deem the release appropriate, we will be happy to run it on our site (usually under the NEWS category).

Reviews

Those wishing to submit product for review should contact our Reviews Editor at the Reviews(at)amazingstoriesmag(dot)com email address prior to sending any materials.

Magazine Advertising

Is not yet available.

Additional information regarding submissions (blog & magazine), jobs, social networking, intellectual property and related matters can be found on additional pages located under the INFO menu tab.